The Human Highmark
by Kakaski
Summary: "Humanity stands alone against the chaos. With a war that threatens to unravel the Galaxy, we, the Human Highmark, must restore Order. Humanity must become more than we already are, become something only dreamed of in games. The Highmark must be the Forerunner of this galaxy." This story is not a crossover of Halo and Mass Effect, but rather a set up for other stories.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - The Golden Age

* * *

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal. Even these beasts recognized what you were oblivious to, human. Your nobility has blinded you, as ever. The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she? Turning my own guardians... my own world... against me. But what hubris to believe she could protect her pets from me forever. If you haven't mastered even these primitives, then Man has not attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented. Time was your ally, human, but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners... have returned. This tomb… is now yours."

\- The Ur-Didact, upon awakening on Forerunner Shield World "Requiem"

* * *

2092 AD:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, makes its stamp on Human history as it becomes the first space agency on Earth to successfully land a man on Mars. News of the success spread across Earth like wildfire, bringing hope to an otherwise dying world, although NASA is not as happy when their explorers discover unknown structures just miles away from the landing site. The mission parameters are quickly changed from scanning the planet for life, to retrieving any artefacts from the structures if possible. Upon further investigation it is discovered that the alien structures were once capable of supporting life and was some sort of outpost. The explorers find only one very damaged computer, that read in perfect Latin translated to English "We Protheans did not prepare for war, as your Roman ancestors did, we found it idiotic. But then they came, in our arrogance we were easily destroyed, prepare for war but do not seek it!". It is assumed that these "Protheans" created the outpost, but was forced to abandon it during some kind of war.

2093 AD:

The United States of North America, Russian Federation, European Union, China and the South American Confederation convene over secure networks about the discovered warning message, in the eyes of the world it was the beginning of a new era of peace, prosperity and unification, but in truth it was the beginning of preparations for war and disaster. With the formation of the Human Highmark, joint research teams from dozens of countries begin to work in tandem to create new machines of war, space travel and starship designs. The main aim of the research teams was turning science fiction into reality.

2100 AD:

With the start of the new century came with the start of a new era of technological enhancement, as the long time problem of sub-light travel and faster than light travel is solved by no other than the Shaw family. The scientific family successfully fielded the "Trinity Antimatter Reactor", three antimatter reactors that provided limitless power with no chance of infecting anyone near it with incredible amounts of gamma rays, and the "Shaw Slipspace Drive" on a starship. It had taken the starship three minutes to reach Pluto from Venus. The scientists declared that their inspiration was the Forerunners from Halo, being a technologically advanced race that had nothing but wonders, it gave way to the future of designs of drones, ships, weapons, armor, even religion and culture was beginning to be effected by the thoughts of these scientists.

2112: Work begins on five Orbital Production Platforms, essentially a large tin with twelve sets of large rings spiralling out into each hour of a clock, over Earth. OPPs were easy to build, only taking a few months, and when each of them worked at full capacity, was able to build seventy two ships every ten years. The few Highmarkian starships that were available were either sent on mining operations to fuel the building process of more ships, fabricators and the OPP, or to test out new weapon systems on useless asteroids, such as rail guns that should be capable of hitting a object with seventy kilotons, point defence shrapnel missiles, and "smart" nuclear torpedoes.

2120:

Members of the Highmark, and the governments that back it, begin to question if the Highmark should remain as just a joint military and scientific entity, or become a political one as well. It is eventually decided that the Highmark, being loyal to all of Humanity and not just a single country, would become a political entity as well. The Highmark Senate is established with five elected officials from every country joining the new government. It is quickly decided that each country would be allowed to make its own laws, so long as it didn't brake Highmark laws or Human rights, and maintain its own army, but, because of the Prothean's message, each country must provide one legion of their army to the Highmark. While that legion swore allegiance to Earth as a whole and the Highmark, they would be separated and mixed up with other country's legions, creating a mixed legion and inspiring cooperation. Each legion was five thousand and four hundred legionaries in size and was either assigned to a planet or a fleet.

2122:

The Highmark begins to construct twenty OPPs in orbit of Earth.

2126:

Six colonization ships are dispatched with the Highmark's first fleet through slipspace, arriving at a system thirty light years away from Sol in just three days. All of Earth celebrates as the garden world called "Reach" is colonized, making it the first colony to be built on an alien world, and outside of Sol as well.

2130:

Architecture and the ecosystem takes priority for the Highmark in this year, desiring to see a clean, beautiful, Earth, and majestic colonies. Many cities are scheduled to turn to glass skyscrapers, while only historically important towns, that hadn't changed in centuries, were spared the demolition, unlike most cities, and the reconstruction of Earth. While building and developing all of the continents were the main goal of Highmark sponsored builders, they were surprisingly careful of the environment, making sure that forests were populated with trees and species saved from extinction. It was in this year the Highmark declared hunting animals illegal, as it is technically unjustified murder, and eating meat was socially frowned upon, by the end of the year Humanity, as a whole, were unintentionally vegetarians.

2131:

The Mantle of Responsibility becomes an actual religion, much to the amusement of many, it is widely followed in Europe, North America and most of Asia.

Reach is mass colonized with glass cities, the builders on the planet envision a planet wide mega city, as nearly all of the land masses are connected.

2133:

The Cerberus Intelligence and Secret Research branch of the Highmark is formed, using the top members of the Highmarkian Intelligence Agency, their goal: ensure all technology remain in the hands of Humanity and no alien force, espionage, black ops, the study of Artificial intelligences and other subjects otherwise unacceptable to be publicly announced as being researched.

2142:

Cerberus finally creates the Highmark's first Artificial Intelligence or Ancilla, he is nicknamed David. The programming makes him aware enough to know right from wrong, but not aware enough to act like a Human, they are obedient, well treated, and are, while not fully trusted by most Humans, placed on warships, military installations, and placed to monitor planets. Ancillas are divided into four types: Teacher class Ancilla, for children, Assistant class Ancilla, for civilian adults, Monitor class Ancilla, for military installations and ships, and finally Hyper class Ancilla, for monitoring planets and the Ancillas on that planet.

2145:

The idea of Sentinels are thought of, designed and sent to war based fabricators. These Sentinels lacked energy shields and weapons, they used standard chemically propelled bullets. Sentinel fabricators are quickly established on Earth and Reach.

Humanity's fear of an Ancilla uprising is finally put to rest when Hyper class Ancilla David, assigned to Earth, develops nanites, a otherwise forgotten nanotechnology. Happy to please his creators, the nanites were designed to increase: the life expectancy of Humans to a minimum of three hundred, memory, senses, mental ability, health, thankfully curing cancer, rendering the aging process undetectable, and other skills. David is rewarded with being the first Ancilla to be able to control the Sentinel forces on Earth, crime rates are reported to drop significantly afterwards.

Cerberus discovers five months later that David neglected to mention that the Human sex drive had been increased and the reproduction time reduced, when questioned David stated that for Humanity to dominate the galaxy they would need a much larger population base. Cerberus accepts the facts, to cover up David's actions Cerberus realises the "Birth tablet" , claiming it would allow the child to be born with less pain and have the baby ready sooner. Both facts were true, however, it wasn't the Birth tablet that did it.

2152: Humanity's population threatens to overrun both Reach and Earth, to remove the threat of overpopulation the Highmark finally decides to move military spending to terraforming Mars and Venus, with the intent of turning them into pristine garden worlds.

Cerberus begins to research energy weapons and shields, although providing an adequate energy source and preventing the gun or user from melting is the main concern.

The idea of personal civilian armor stirs in the Highmark's scientific branch.

2162: The Highmark's resources begin to stretch thin with the completed terraforming of Venus, completion of the Highmark's seven thousand five hundred sixtieth starship and the redevelopment of Earth and Reach. So, while colonization of Venus begins, it is planned to take in millions from the billions of Humans from Earth, the Highmark fifth fleet begins to search for a new system. Eventually it finds the "Bounty" system, a dozen worlds rich in resources that the Highmark desperately needed, twenty seven light years in the opposite direction of Reach. Highmark owned mining corporations quickly travel to the system and begin to mine away the endless stream of resources.

2165:

Because the Highmark hold six fleets, each one thousand two hundred and sixty starships large, the final two systems that surround Sol are surveyed and claimed by the forth and fifth fleets, the sixth fleet acting as a QRF space force. The forth fleet was assigned to another resource rich system, opposite the Reach system, while the fifth fleet was assigned to a colony in the Peace system, opposite the Bounty system. Each of the new systems are either colonized or begin to be mined.

2174:

Cerberus' energy research program finally bears fruit as energy shielding becomes cheap enough to mass produce, however, energy weapons still allude the scientists.

2177:

Personal armor for civilians is finally designed and deemed economically feasible, the armor is distributed to the masses of Earth, Reach, Venus, Mars, Benning and Arcturus garden worlds. Each armor is white with any colour of electric nanite circuits flowing across the armor, it is sleek and rather it being a traditional bulky armor, seemingly like another layer of skin. The armor is equipped with energy shields, an Ancilla to suit the user's age and emergency doses of medical nanites. It suspends the need to eat, sleep or use the toilet, however, it does not remove the want to feed themselves or dream.

2188:

On a routine patrol in the Arcturus system, the patrol group witness a small asteroid impact with another asteroid. As the debris pushed each other clear of the original site of impact, the crews find a tuning gate of sort, floating unharmed and in a pristine looking state. The commanding officer of the patrol group immediately sent word to Highmark Command on Earth.

As soon as the tuning gate is quarantined, Cerberus is put in charge of hiding its existence from the civilian population and researching what it is and what it does.

2199:

Cerberus made very little head way in uncovering what the tuning gate was, except for the facts of how to turn it on and that it was actually called a "Mass Relay", a FTL method that the Protheans most likely used. Against orders, Cerberus activates the Relay and sends one of its starships through, the starship in question is captured in a swirl of blue light and then flung out of sensor sight. Seconds later a report from the starship locates it a thousand light years away, a five and a half day trip in slipspace.

2200:

Humanity celebrates the new century with unwavering eagerness as the Highmark's eighth fleet finishes production, Earth's surface finally has comfortable moving room with only five point four billion inhabitants, the cities of Mars, Venus, Reach and Arcturus are a sprawling metropolis, each planet having just under two point seven billion inhabitants, the farms of Benning and its millions of inhabitants providing the bread and butter for Humanity, new advances in slipspace technology allow for FTL speeds of over three hundred LY a day. The Highmark has revised its political system to include dozens of worlds, and has also begun to rapidly explore other solar systems, whenever finding Mass Relays quarantining them with a military patrol group, eight frigates and one cruiser, several new worlds are planned for future colonization and energy weapons seem to be within Humanity's grasp.

A Highmark scientific flotilla, along with two patrol groups from the eighth fleet, are dispatched to quarantine a newly discovered Relay from the other side, as well as see if the Relay houses any new data.

* * *

August 5th - 2200

In the black, star less, void that was a slipspace tunnel, the HSV Boston and her two frigate wolfpacks flew in a perfect formation towards the end of the tunnel. The end of the tunnel was a circular hole with a purplish blue trim, inside the diameter were the stars of normal space, heaven out of this hell. He couldn't explain, Star Centurion G class Jacob Kailua, but whenever he and his patrol group entered slipspace he felt as if he had entered a grave, forgotten in time. It was just nerves, he knew that, if the energy shields failed or the hull was somehow breached, dangerous slipspace radiation would leak in and kill everyone on-board.

Kailua rested on the anti-gravity command chair, that was placed at the centre of the circular bridge, a 3D holographic map of the galaxy projected in mid-air before him. His ship, along with most ships, had been retrofitted with the new technology discovered just months ago, improved slipspace drives, energy shields for better radiation and combat protection, but his most favourite was the anti-gravity chair. It was fun to float in a chair, spinning around to address individual members, or certain sections, of the crew. It was childish, yes, but it was one of the few things military "lifers", like him, got to do.

The navigator announced in a synthetic like voice "Exiting slipspace in five..."

Kailua focused his attention on the galaxy map, there were twenty mapped systems, only thirteen of them were in use and then only two of those systems, Sol and Arcturus, belonged to the "Mass Relay network".

"Four..."

Highmark space seemed so insignificant when compared to the rest of the galaxy, so small, so tiny in this vast galaxy.

"Three..."

Of course Humanity wasn't rushing things, it is one thing to have a large, defenceless, empire, but a better thing to have a small, impenetrable, empire.

"Two..."

Was that what the Highmark was? An empire? No, it wasn't, it was a republic of Human worlds, rather militaristic yes, but in this dangerous galaxy that wasn't a bad thing.

"One..."

The patrol group slid out the tunnels exit. Stars lit up the black void once more, bringing a small smile to his face, not out of witnessing the beautiful stars light up of the blackness before him, but at the fact he was out of the haunting tunnel of slipspace. He turned his attention back to the slowly rotating galaxy map, as they had entered the new system, the sensors of the ship had automatically scanned the system and had forced the map to solely show this system.

It was unfairly small with only four planets, three of which were very hostile to Humans, according to the preliminary sensory data and the Mass Relay behind them stuck out like a sore bone. Kailua saw the scientific flotilla flying parallel to the Relay, a mere hundred kilometres away from the giant structure. Then, acting as a protective bubble, another patrol group surrounded the flotilla in a semi-circle

"Communications, contact the HSV Hastings, message as follows: The HSV Boston and her patrol group has arrived, you stand relieved. End message" Kailua ordered the Star Manipulator, who, being an expert at reading his Centurion's mind, had already recorded the message, encrypted it with standard Highmark encryption, and sent it to the HSV Hastings.

"Aye, aye sir, message secured and away."

On the galaxy map the nine dark green dots slowly parted from the blue scientific dots, reaching a distance of ten thousand kilometres from the Relay, then disappearing from the system as they entered slipspace. He wondered if the Centurion commander in that patrol group felt the ghosts of slipspace, he hoped not, it was an awful feeling to have, even if it was for a few minutes or for hours.

"Helm, turn us around, full burn to the Relay. We're five hundred thousand kilometres out and I don't quite like that." His helmet hid the small smile forming on his face.

"Coming about, full burn, aye, aye sir!" The ship's pilot in front of him said enthusiastically.

His pilot, Joshua Bahti, was a cocky pilot that loved to test the limits of his ship, putting his cruiser through manoeuvres that should otherwise be impossible. It was annoying at times, but when the pilot in dark blue second skin armor, with green nanites of an NCO zipping all over the armor, looked over his shoulder, his Greek Spartan styled helmet titled, and the V shaped orange visor sparkled, he knew that Josh was confidant he could pull off the manoeuvres. Of course turning around and pushing the engines to maximum wasn't a difficult task, a monkey could do it.

"Amanda, warn the ships: full turn and full burn in two minutes." Kailua ordered his ship's Monitor class Ancilla.

"Warning sent, Ancillas acknowledged, ready for full turn and burn, sir." Amanda reported over the bridge section of the Battle-Net.

The ship lurched slightly as the ship did a hard turn, then, as could be expected with a sudden full burn, everyone on the ship felt as if there stomachs had been hit with a hammer. Kinetic energy was an annoying thing. However, the sensation lasted for just a few seconds as powerful inertial dampers powered up enough to compensate for the increase in speed.

"We'll need to enter a full declaration turn in five minutes sir, otherwise we could overshoot the meet point." The star navigator reported next to Josh.

"Yeah, I don't like ramming into Relays either." Josh added with a secret grin.

"No one does Star Navigator, no one does."

"Yeah, I like living to, sir." Josh replied hesitantly, deciding it was best to turn back to the piloting screens.

In moments the bridge entered complete, comfortable, silence. Terminals buzzed, clicked and dinged, much to the annoyance of everyone, as their respective personal tended to them. Kailua just stared out into the view screen, forming a perfect camera feed of the seemingly still stars. Windows were a structural weakness, in combat or not, a lucky shot, debris, anything could hit the window with enough force to smash and decompress the area. Killing dozens of crewmen all for a "pretty view of space".

Why, Kailua wondered, take the risk when tiny cameras placed all along the hull, and then connected to various "view screens" around the ship, could do the same job with almost no risk. The only risk being a camera succumbing to a virus, then somehow escaping the isolated camera network and infecting the rest of the ship. Lost in thought, Kailua was caught unaware as the ship suddenly began its deceleration, the inertial dampers too caught unaware. Lurching forward with the rest of the bridge crew, the undesirable pain finally ended when the inertial dampers finally detected the change in speed and compensated.

"Star Navigator Josh!" Kailua bellowed.

* * *

In the coldness of space an Asari fleet discharged their built up heat emissions from the battle before, briefly warming that area of space. The hundred and three Divine class frigates, twenty two Athame class cruisers and the sole Huntress class dreadnought were usually sleek, star like in design, but now there were gaping holes in the hulls of the ship, kinetic barriers maintaining what little oxygen the ships had. Parts of the ships had simply blown off, like the left wing of the "Destiny Ascension" Huntress dreadnought.

This fleet had, just hours ago, been five times its current size, but the battle with the Batarian hordes had taken a server toll on the fleet. Batarian hordes. Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, the only surviving diplomat, chuckled at that. The Batarians thought themselves superior, yet they had simply charged the Asari fleet, no tactics were involved. It was devastating yes, but uncoordinated, reckless, all because the peaceful Asari didn't know how to fight wars. Well the now dead Batarian admiral learned the hard way: Asari could fight.

It had been seventeen years since the great schism between the Council and the associate races, that Turian spectre, Saren, had destroyed the great Citadel all in the name of "stopping the return of the Reapers." pah! A ferry tale told to little children to scare them. Though in the end the repercussions of his actions drowned out any proof he had, words, vids, all useless when every species was saying "No Citadel, no Council, no alliance.". Yes with the destruction of the Citadel that sense of unity was lost, hatred fuelled and war inevitable.

The Council races, her race, had lost all control and now the galaxy was plunged into nothing but war. Those that were once allies were now enemies and so the future for the Asari was bleak, in truth the Asari needed other species more than they cared to admit. Matrons were now forced to give birth to purebloods, a "curse" on Asari society and culture, as aliens no longer could or even wanted to bond with an Asari. So, as every other species continued to grow, the Asari would die not by outside forces, but by genetic inbreeding and the Aradat-Yakshi, soon, in three generations at best, the Asari would not even be able to mate with each other, sending them to extinction.

Their only hope was to find a new species, make them allies, and prey to the Goddess that they would be willing to bond with the Asari. They needed to be willing.

"Told ya, Nezzy!" The words of her old bondmate echoed "We were to reliant on the Turians for protection, now look at us! Our people are being enslaved by the Batarians, conquered by the Turians, tested upon by the Salarians, and now, now?! You and the coven want my help!? My guidance!?" Benezia sighed at the last words "You better find a new species, or were gonna die real quick."

Her bondmate had taken up the role as supreme commander of all Asari forces, going against everything the Asari believed in, but anything was better than extinction.

"Matriarch, we can not stay here." The captain said in a distant, no, dead voice "We are going to the next system, ten light years away. A twenty hour trip."

Matriarch Benezia glanced down at the floor briefly, whispered a prey to the Goddess Athame and said.

"Do it."

* * *

CODEX

The Human Highmark Navy:

Highmark fleets, sometimes referred to as Star Legions, works as a independent military of itself, reporting to Highmark Command only when protocol demanded it. Standard Highmark fleet procedure dictated that the Fleet Commander was to establish a Fleet Command base, with the first sub fleet, in orbit of a planet and control sub fleets from there. Using a version of the Roman legion ranking system, the Highmark star legion is based upon seven ranks, each defined by the colour of their nanites:

Rank - Role - Nanite colour

Star Legionarie - The standard crew member - Red

Star Navigator - The pilot and navigator (pilot held in higher regard) - Green

Star Manipulator - The officer of communications, tactical, engineering etc - Black

Star Centurion S class - The commanding officer of a ship - Dark Yellow

Star Centurion G class - The commanding officer of a patrol group - Yellow

Star Centurion SF class - The commanding officer of a sub fleet (the first Centurion SF class is held in higher regard) - Bright Purple

Fleet Commander - The commanding officer of the fleet - White

The Human Highmark Army:

The Highmark army also operates on a legion system, with each legion being able to produce whatever they need. They are normally five thousand four hundred legionaries in size, and are either assigned to a section of a planet, a military installation or a fleet. When operating on a fleet, the Star Commander is always a higher rank than a Legion Commander, in ground operations a Legion Command is established with the first and second cohort held in reserve. Their use of the Battle-Net is by far the most complicated, but also the most successful. Each legion is made up of ten ranks:

Rank - Role - Nanite colour

Legionarie - The basic grunt - Bright Red

Advanced Legionarie - Squad leader - Red

Elite Legionarie - Platoon leader - Dark Red

N Legionarie - members of the first cohort - Blue

Centurion - Company leader - Light Purple

Advanced Centurion - Cohort leader - Purple

Elite Centurion - second Cohort leader - Dark Purple

N Centurion - first Cohort leader - Dark Blue

Manipulator - support officer - Grey

Legion Commander - commander of the Legion - Yellow

The first cohort, or N cohort, is the legion's special forces, always held in reserve and never wasted on frontline battles. The second cohort are the reserve mechs and drones, always used to support the first cohort. The third and fourth cohort are usually held in reserve, the former Legionaries and the latter support craft. Finally the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth cohorts are the first to see battle.

The Human Highmark Battle-Net:

An idea conceived in the mid twenty second century, the Battle-Net was designed to act solely as a military communications network in each system. Each ship, squad, patrol group, platoon and so on had its own section of the Battle-Net.

When in use by the navy, Centurion S class worked at the local level, their ship, using their section of the Battle-Net to talk across the ship or certain sections of the ship. When a Centurion G class used the Battle-Net, it was either like a Centurion S class or to address one or more ships, swiftly passing orders around, or to contact a Centurion SF class. This continues on for the Centurion SF and Star Commander, using it to contact sections or all of their ship(s).

When in use by ground based Legions, it is effectively the same, however in large scale battles sections for each unit are lost, instead replaced with "battle sections". Battle sections of the Battle-Net encompass certain zones of the battlefield and can vary in size. Each battle section is usually used by platoons and support craft, as the goal is that each battle section would have a certain amount of support craft and troops, so that those who operated in the area could easily call in for support. This meant that it was easy for the Legion Commander and his aids to command the battle, as no one was requesting them for immediate assistance, knowing that the support in the zone was all they had.

While flawed yes, each battle section would receive reinforcements when the Centurion or Advanced Centurion would request it, usually from "safe sections".

[~~]

Note: I can't promise fast updates, as my life is busy right now, but I plan to release one chapter every week.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - The Fields of Hell

A/N: I'll say this now, the primary focus for the Highmark's scientific branch, both known and unknown (ones you don't know about either), has been on weapons technology, because of the Prothean's message. War is coming! Wouldn't you prepare? Still my, uh, ships may be to OP for you, but think about the galaxy the Highmark is entering. I would like to thank those who reviewed, and I urge those who haven't, to review.

* * *

Human society has developed to mimic that of the Forerunners, with slight differences that barely make any difference. Human adults separate themselves into Waves of Life, choosing to follow the Wave of a Warrior, Builder, Oracle, Keeper, Shaper and so on. Children are not included in the Wave of their parents until the age of eighteen, they then spend thirty years in that Wave, then are given the option to move to another Wave that they believe suits them. Though few actually do this.

Those without parents are adopted by Waves, leaving them no choice but to remain in their adopted Wave forever. Only the leaders of these Waves are political, but Waves mainly determine how society looks at you. Ever since the creation of the Waves, Builders and Warriors have always faced off with each other, the former seeing the latter as destroyers of architecture, and the latter seeing the former as logical creatures with no true love or hate for organic life. There are numerous reasons why these Waves were created, however, the main three believed reasons are: to keep Humanity diverse in its views, become a replica of a near perfect race, as they see their own as imperfect, or because these generations have developed using the Forerunners as inspiration, which has led to the evolution or devolution, depending on how you look at it, of Human society.

Another, rare belief is the Precursor Paradox, where the oldest race in the Halo franchise created Humanity to create Halo, thereby creating the Precursors so the Precursors could create Humanity, during this cycle the Precursors copied what they did in halo and spilt Humanity in two, creating Forerunner-humans and just normal humans yet to be discovered.

\- Documentary on the development of Human society

* * *

August 6th - 2200

Deimos, once a Greek god that symbolized the terror that war will always bring, now easily defines the planet that the eleventh platoon, of the ninth cohort, found themselves on. As per patrol regulations, the HSV Boston carried a platoon of legionaries, a total of forty legionaries instead of the standard fifty, was sent down to a nearby planet to establish a listening post and to scout for resources. However, this system was deadly to Humans, and Deimos was the only planet that could barely sustain Humans, meaning terraforming would have to be heavily implemented here. It was hot, uncomfortable, and had barely enough air to be even considered a planet and not some gas giant or asteroid.

The red rock surface was equally annoying for the platoon, it was hard to build anything with secure support beams, when you couldn't penetrate the surface. Spades, pick axes, drills, even the bullets from their guns barely dented the thick surface.

"Maybe an orbital bombardment would do the trick." Suggested legionarie Dan, as he rested on a crate marked "AR AMMUNITION".

"Don't be ridiculous!" Scolded legionarie Jane "It'll take more than rail guns." She crouched to the floor and brushed her left hand along the red surface.

"If I may make a suggestion?" Asked the a Monitor class Ancilla.

Dan looked at the floating, metal, cube like ball form that was their squad Ancilla, his concerned look hidden behind his blackened, V shaped visor. The first squad, his squad mates, didn't like it when the Ancilla asked to do anything basic, their goal was to make him or her as organic as possible, less strict and by the rules. It was against the rules to attempt it, but no one paid attention to the eleventh platoons.

"You don't have to ask, whatcha got?" Dan asked.

The Ancilla floated backwards a little, the sonic propulsion systems evidently emitting from the bottom, left and right sides of the cube like ball.

"Well, Dan, you are all equipped with energy shielding units, correct?" He asked, the Ancilla knew full well that they did, but he asked for their benefit.

"Of course." Jane said slowly, hesitantly.

"Do you know what happens when two or three are overloaded?" The Ancilla asked rhetorically "It super heats and melts. Now my calculations assure me that three overloaded energy shielding units would be enough to melt the surface."

Dan quickly did up the math, the listening post that needed to be built would need twenty support beams, that was sixty energy shielding units, twenty to many.

"That won't work." Jane said, coming to the same conclusion as Dan had "We are twenty energy shielding units short."

"And I don't like the idea of being un-shielded." Dan added "This planet is very hostile, maybe the wild life is too."

"Sir, you are incorrect. We arrived with over fifty crates of supplies and building materials-"

"I know, it was a pain to move." Groaned Dan.

"Yes, your body temperature agrees. Anyway, one of those crates contained forty shielding units, so you see we will have twenty extra shielding units to equip four squads with."

"Your right." Jane agreed "Come on, let's find our fearless Elite legionarie."

Jane walked off from Dan, their Ancilla floating along next to her, in the direction of the piles of crates. Off loading all of the crates had taken hours, and the shuttles weren't available as they had gone to get more crates, so the Elite legionarie, the commander of the platoon, had wisely ordered his men to take a breather from all the work, while they could. The quick decision had left the crates in a semi-organized state, with stacks of the same equipment placed all around the landing site, opposite Dan, a few dozen metres away. It sort of looked like a maze, it was definitely one when it came to finding someone, Jane soon discovered.

"It appears we are lost." The Ancilla commented as they turned another corner, only to see Dan again.

Jane let out a sigh. "And here I thought we wouldn't have to use the Battle-Net."

"Indeed."

Jane ignored the Ancilla's strange response and brought her right hand up to her right ear.

"Elite legionarie, Gamma squad has a solution to our little surface problem. Gamma-one out."

"Gamma-one." Came her Elite legionarie's voice a moment later "Please tell me what it is, we just broke our tenth drill trying to break the surface."

Tenth? Well males were destructive.

"Sir, our Ancilla says that if we overloaded three energy shielding units, the heat would be enough to burn through the surface of one support beam location. We'd have to break into our spares, but after we're done, we should have twenty shielding units left." Jane explained.

The comms was silently for a while, the legionarie on the other end no doubt thinking it through, they were on a hostile planet with most likely hostile wildlife, their shields were their only protection until the listening post was set up.

"Looks like we have a plan, legionaries!" The Elite legionarie finally said "Gamma-one, tell your Ancilla: good job! Platoon leader, out."

Jane turned to the floating Ancilla, who had begun to whistle, or played an audio file of someone whistling anyway, she smiled at the attempt of acting Human.

"You heard the man," Jane said "good job. Now come on, we have shielding units to burn!"

Jane and Gamma's Ancilla walked back to Dan, Jacob was their too, Jane noted, now they had enough units.

"Jacob! Dan! Give me your shielding units please." She knew that both of them had been listening to the Battle-Net when she had announced their Ancilla's plan, as it was required to be always linked to a Battle-Net.

Jacob placed his hand on a small hump of armor on Dan's back, and pulled out the cylindrical body of Dan's energy shielding unit. Dan in turn did the same to Jacob's energy shielding unit and turned to their Ancilla.

"You sure this will work?" He asked.

"Of course!" Declared the Ancilla.

"Alright then." Dan spun a surprised Jane around with his free hand, slid her shielding unit out of her back hump and placed both units gently on the ground. Jacob placed the shielding unit next to the others, on a black X, scratched into the surface.

"Beginning overload." The Ancilla announced.

The three Gammas watched in complete fascination as their energy shielding units' cooling devices deactivated and began to melt away, due to the uncontrolled heat and energy. Eventually the cylindrical units turned to hot, steaming plasma, melting away the surface. Thankfully, the surface melted four feet before the lack of oxygen, that was required to sustain the plasma's heat, ran out, leaving a perfect, four feet long cylinder, in the ground.

"Sir, let's get the support beams to zero-two, it works."

* * *

Matriarch Benezia was in the Destiny Ascension's main med bay, watching over a dark blue Asari who laid completely motionless on the bed. She knew that she shouldn't be here, watching IV lines, listening to the heart monitor beep, looking miserable, weak... vulnerable, it wasn't helping the morale of the already depressed crew. But the freckles under the hurt Asari's eyes, the beautiful lips and delicate facial markings above her eyes, things that she had seen in a dream, told the Matriarch all she needed to known: this was her daughter, and she would not abandon her.

Liara T'Soni, her little wing, had been critically injured during the fight with Batarian hordes, she had, despite being a mere maiden, fought valiantly against the slaves and their overseers as they boarded the largest dreadnought in the galaxy. Her little wing had been swarmed on all sides, she had risen a barrier and was fighting desperately to keep them out, but two dozen fists constantly banging against the barrier would be to much, even for a Matriarch. It was only with the timely arrival of her commandos, did Liara live to see this day.

As her eyes fluttered open, the big blue eyes that drew all the attention to her already at work, she began to rise her hand. Benezia gently stopped the hand and lowered it back down to the bed.

"Mother," Liara said in a raspy voice "it hurts."

The amount of time Liara had actively used her biotics, as well as being subjected to nine seconds of beatings from a mob of slaves, had left her little wing broken, both physically and mentally.

"Doctor," Benezia motioned to the doctor behind her, who was currently treating a less critical patient "can you give her any pain medication?"

The doctor gave Benezia a sad frown, then shook her head, no. Benezia turned back to Liara, her little wing's fists were clenched, as if all the pain would go away then.

"Everything will be okay, little wing, you shall see." Benezia assured her, totally ignorant of who was coming.

As Matriarch Lindanya stepped into the med bay, her face cold and un-moving, she spotted her fellow Matriarch, Benezia, sitting on one of the chairs next to Liara, giving the young Asari a fierce hug. Liara was obviously in pain, but the medical staff had lost a lot of medical equipment when the Batarians had boarded, so whatever they had left had to be used as carefully as possible, never using more than was required, and even then... Lindanya hated seeing the Matriarch's daughter in pain, an Asari she herself had watched grow into once a shy archaeologist, to a major participant in Asari politics, just like her mother.

Lindanya looked at the over crowded med bay, the room was rather long, each side having fifty bed cots, all were in use. There were so many wounded, that every med bay on the ship was over filled, with everyone who had "minor" injuries either in chairs or lying on the floor. The two thousand and four hundred medical staff were overwhelmed with injuries, and did not have the required supplies to save them all.

_"We have a week before all those injured, begin to die."_ The words of medical chief Melina echoed in her mind.

Lindanya walked over to Benezia and placed a friendly hand on her shoulder, Benezia looked up and over her right shoulder, her eyes sparkling with tears. Lindanya flashed Benezia an assuring smile, it was the only thing she could do, she was the captain, the Grand Fleet Mistress of the entire Asari navy, answering solely to Matriarch Atheyta, and she had failed in her duty: protect Benezia, protect Liara.

"Matriarch Benezia, you are needed on the bridge, we should be arriving soon and our scanners have detected... something." Lindanya finally said.

The med bay was filled with loud groans of pain, displeasure and smelt purely of blood and sweat, despite this, Lindanya could hear the thoughts of the Matriarch, and they were not pleasant. These thoughts, however, did not last as centuries of training activated, bringing the worrying mother into a cold, calculating state. Benezia rose from her seat as Liara reached out, as if to grab her for support, she wanted to come to. Gently placing Liara's hand back on the cot, Lindanya realized how weak Liara looked and really was, it mortified her, but didn't let it show.

"Grand Fleet Mistress, please lead the way." Commanded Benezia in a tone that could only be described as cold and distant.

It was a coping mechanism, Lindanya realized, inside Benezia was still dying along with her daughter, it was the connection they shared. Liara was turning into a matron, there was no doubting that as her changing body was proof, but she was still a maiden, still a child, and therefore shared a link with her mother that could only be described as mystical. It was something that each Asari shared with their mother, maidens, who were the most seen Asari, were very sex driven, hence the Asari's reputation. So it was the duty of the mother to ensure each maiden didn't go to far, to ensure that each maiden was not perverted, or misused the meld, stole or erased other people's memories, mind rape, the ultimate crime in Asari society. If the link were broken at a very early stage... the maiden would have to connect with a family member, otherwise these things were sure to happen.

That wouldn't happen to Liara now, of course, it was too late and she had much more control than even many matrons Lindanya knew.

"As you wish, Matriarch."

* * *

"This is all your fault, you know that right?" Questioned Star Navigator Thor.

He stared at his fellow Star Navigator, Josh was his name, who was already making his way to the cockpit of the Falcon class interceptor. The interceptor was rather bird like in design, with a pen like body, forward swept wings, jet engines in the tail, and a hover engine in each wing, it sported the golden colour of the Highmark military, with the blue electric circuits flying around the interceptor, they were nanites, ready to fix or improve anything during and out of combat.

"What?" Josh questioned as he slid the orange canopy open "What are you talking about?"

Thor jumped up onto the left wing and began to walk towards the cockpit.

"That were stuck on this pointless recon mission, when those falcon class drones," he indicated to five man sized falcon interceptors as they flew overhead, their hover engines whining and shaking "would be better suited."

"How is this my fault?" Josh asked, flicking his head and brining up the orange visor, Thor did the same as he climbed in too.

"Maybe that whole 'he's day dreaming let's not let him know', remember, when he nearly fell out of his seat." Thor sat down in the navigator chair, behind Josh.

"Don't remind me, that 'talk' we had was awful. Who knew a Human could shout so loud?" Josh adjusted the flight control sensitivity and began to fire up the hover engines. "Total worth it though."

The falcon interceptor began to rise a few metres in the air, as Josh carefully manipulated the controls, swinging itself around ninety degrees to the left, so that they faced the exit hatches of the prong hanger. The maintenance staff, that had been refuelling the interceptor and preparing it for a recon mission, darted off from the now hovering interceptor.

"Deck control, this is the falcon 2-2, third squadron, requesting launch permission." Thor said over the deck control's section of the Battle-Net, then turned off the link so he could respond to Josh "It wasn't worth it! Why did I have to sit through it too?"

Josh looked over his shoulder to look at Thor, a grin on his face, but Thor couldn't see it.

"Because it's your job to let our Centurion know, not mine."

"Yes it i-"

"Falcon 2-2, you are clear for launch." The deck control officer announced over the hanger.

The falcon's tilted wings and the side prongs at the front of the interceptor, instantly straightened, making sounds that reminded Josh of Transformers from those old Earth vids that had been experiencing a major reboot. Pieces of metal, that was retracted into the wings, slid over the hover engines and slid off the jet engines, all in an instant so that the interceptor didn't flop to the ground.

"And were gone!" Josh said as he throttled the interceptor forward.

He easily flew through the containment field, as it didn't stop anything physical from passing through, and made a hard right to avoid hitting the other hanger, that was parallel to the hanger they had just launched from.

"Josh! Slow down!" Thor managed to squeeze out as he felt his insides being squashed.

"Relax Thor," Josh said, he increased the power the inertial dampers to ninety eight percent "better?"

"A little warning next time Josh." Thor scolded "And why don't you put the inertial dampers to a hundred percent?"

As the falcon cleared the duel prongs of the HSV Boston, Josh looked over his shoulder and quickly drew back his head, the military sign of "Are you crazy?"

"Thor, I know you're all girly and such, but don't insult our military girls!" Josh chuckled "Seriously, I've met civilians with more gut than you."

"Well, some of us prefer to live!" It was at that second both of them sounded their age, nineteen, it had been a long time since Thor had let his child side free.

Josh and Thor had been in the Highmark Aerospace Training Academy for the past four years, there the instructors spoke very highly of them. Without a doubt they were the best pilot team in the Highmark, they had past simulations that were simply designed to be impossible. So they had graduated earlier, not the standard five years of training, but only four years, it was all they needed. They were just lucky that the Highmark Specialist Program had found them, an organization made to seek out those who are "special", otherwise they might have been fast food delivery boys instead.

"Then you picked the wrong career choice, my friend."

"Yeah, well, some one has to be crazy enough to watch your back." Thor leaned over and lightly punched Josh's shoulder "Energy banks were at maximum when we left, our slipspace drive has enough energy for seven, maybe eight portals."

Thor had quickly learned the problem with slipspace, it was having enough energy to actually create portals to enter or exit slipspace, as your already in slipspace staying there wasn't a problem. If you couldn't muster the required energy, you'd be stuck in slipspace forever. There was always the chance of someone finding you and helping, but slipspace was so vast it was almost impossible to find anything but a system's location, Highmark sensors were simply not advanced enough, or have the range required, to search the seven dimensions of slipspace.

"Well, we only have two systems to scan, we're good!" Josh declared.

"Okay, we're safely away from the patrol group, entering slipspace in five, four, three, two, one."

The purplish blue portal opened up a few hundred kilometres in front of the falcon, it was tiny when compared to the portals of cruisers, frigates and especially the Fortresses. Soon the falcon entered the portal, at top speed, and the stars of space seemed to loose all power, they just became dark, like a city blackout. It was a rather scary thing, being in the small interceptor, it's front headlights, were the only thing providing any light, and it was useless. What was behind you? To your left and right? Did you see that ghost ship?

Josh shook his head, many on the HSV Boston, in the entire navy, saw or felt these things, the ghosts, the feeling of helplessness in slipspace. What had made this place so dark? So evil? Could it have once been lighter like normal space, but those flames long since extinguished?

"You feel it too, right?" Thor asked, catching Josh be surprise.

"Feel what?"

"The ghosts idiot, the cries for help, the darkness." He explained.

"Yeah, I feel it, I think everyone does. But they can't hurt us, let's just focus on the mission." Josh said with all the strength he could muster.

"Your right, okay, here comes our exit point."

Another slipspace portal opened up, it's light illuminating the near vicinity, and that's when Josh saw it. A ship lay still, perfectly intact and it's size incomprehensible.

"Thor, what's that?" He asked, but it was to late, the falcon exited slipspace and what Josh had seen was quickly replaced by the stars of normal space.

"What was what?" Thor asked, seemingly happy to be out of slipspace.

"Never mind."

* * *

Deimos' air smelt of burnt plasma, not that the eleventh platoon could smell it, as their helmets were on, and the surface didn't look any better. In the ground there were perfectly scorched holes, twenty in total, each one having two legionaries trying to squeeze in the support beams for the listening post. The eleventh platoon was the last platoon anyone wanted to be in, it was more a punishment than anything else, as these forty men and women were responsible for the maintenance and construction of any assets their cohort had access to.

They were combat engineers, basically.

"Finally!" Dan announced "We're done!"

Jane's eyes wondered up and down the support beam, the beam was about four feet off the ground, cylindrical in shape, but had a square top. Blue streaks of nanites swirled around the beam, reinforcing its frame and durability, increasing its strength to support weight, and reducing aging of the Highmarkian Alloy. It wouldn't help anyone if it rusted, weakened or snapped only after a few weeks of use.

"All other teams report the beams are successfully in place, shuttles are incoming with the prefabricated buildings." Gamma's Ancilla reported.

The shuttles in question quickly flew over head, the VTOL Condor class shuttle was a design "borrowed" from the video game "Saints Row the Third" or something like that, from a faction called "STAG". It was quite long, around thirty-five metres long as it was a carrier class for buildings and support units, it had a cockpit shaped like a slope with a right angle, then a long strip of golden painted metal, that had a wing on either side, each wing had a hover engine of course, to make it a VTOL, and the jets were at the back of the metal tail, ready to active in seconds. To keep the fabricated building attached to this strip of metal, or tail, there were clamps on either side of the metal, that ran the length of the strip.

Everything that wasn't organic, Jane noted, was always golden in colour, with blue streaks of nanites to reinforce it, be it a ship, transport or even building. This slow moving beast was no exception. The orange canopy reflected the sun light perfectly, hiding whoever was inside, but giving away their position like a spotlight.

"Come on!" Dan shouted at the pilot, who simply hovered a dozen metres above them "I want to get off this rock some time today!"

"Dan, quiet down." Jane slapped him in the back of his dark blue helmet.

"Think we annoyed Dan enough?" The shuttle's Star Navigator pilot asked his Navigator.

"Well, he's shouting, so yeah, I say it's enough." The lower Star Navigator replied, a sly smile hidden behind his orange visor.

"Setting her down." Complied the Star Navigator.

The shuttle slowly descended, the lower class Navigator carefully directed the higher class Navigator, so that the shuttle was correctly aligned with the support beams. It took a little while, as precision was key, but the Navigators eventually landed their building on Dan's support beam, as well as a few others. Dan watched impatiently, as the nanites of the buildings and support beams quickly linked together and connected the beams to the building. The building wasn't complete, Dan and Jane's support beam just helped the lower left section of the base, but that section was huge, thirty metres in width and eighty metres in length, how the shuttle could carry is was beyond him.

"Well, it's long." Dan commented, as he watched more shuttles attach their sections of the buildings to other support beams. "But it also seems that this is more than a simple listening post."

"Agreed." Jane projected a 3D layout of the facility, using her helmet cam.

This was a base of operations, a firebase, that much was obvious. Where Jane and Dan were, was the four support beams they, and six others, had placed, it made up just one section of the base. There were three other sections just like this. It should stop there, but ten metres diagonally across from each corner were buildings marked "defence towers".

"Gamma, Beta, Fox and Omega squad, start moving the crates to their assigned destination and start assembling them." The Elite Legionarie ordered over the planet's Battle-Net "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta, grab the spare energy shielding units."

"Not the crates." Groaned Dan "Anything but the crates."

"Shake a leg." Ordered Jane as she grabbed the crate Dan had set on earlier "Looks like I'm heading for the armoury, section four."

As Jane ascended the ramp, their Ancilla following her like a lost puppy, Dan glanced over to the more organized piles of crates. As more had come they had worked even harder, organizing everything into rows and stacks.

"Why couldn't I be assigned to the tenth platoon." Dan whispered.

He entered a quick jog to reach the piles first, he wanted to grab the lighter, closer, ones before anyone else could. Dan spotted a crate labelled "MEDI-GEL" and smiled, medi-gel was a medical wonder, while it wasn't needed to be carried in tubes anymore, as everyone's armor had built in medi-gel dispensers, that supply had to come from somewhere. He grabbed the crate and began to walk back to the section his crate was assigned to, the medical section.

"Dan, Dan, Dan," repeated an all to familiar voice "when are you gonna stop actin' like a baby?"

Dan muttered something then turned back to see Gamma two and three, Jacob and a field named Taziu. They were standing there with much larger, much heavier crates, while their faces were hidden he knew that they were laughing at him inwardly. Dan was not the strongest Gamma, to put it mildly, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't develop the bone strength others had, even with the help of machines and gene manipulation, it was simply a curse with no cure. This was something Taziu had no problem in mocking, it was a "I really love you" mock, he knew that, everyone knew that, it was to obvious but Taziu wasn't known for her ability to express emotions.

"At least I don't look like a freak of nature." Dan jabbed, as the three began to walk again.

"At least I don't need Jane to hold my hand like an overgrown baby." She snapped.

"Jacob, you alright?" Dan asked, ignoring Taziu.

He was panting heavily with his crate, now he was seven feet, a giant mass of a Human, and he was struggling to carry a crate no larger than three feet long.

"Yeah, but what the hell is in this crate?" He wondered.

"A.S.D." Taziu muttered, reading the label "What's that?"

"Armoured Support Dog." Dan explained "A robotic dog that is five feet long, but curled up when it's offline. The A.S.D is primarily used for recon, sniping or overwhelming small enemy camps. Like all support craft slash units, it is equipped with an energy shielding unit and duel B-26 submachine gun, "Hurricane" class, on either side of the jaw. The A.S.D was first developed in the twenty first century by the U.S. military, to combat the second Iraq war, since then it had been redesigned countless times."

Taziu and Jacob both stopped and looked at him, Dan turned around.

"What?" He asked.

"You know this how, babe?" Taziu asked.

"I read the manual." Dan replied.

"There's a manual on A.S.D?" Jacob asked.

"There's a manual on everything, it's called a CODEX."

Satisfied with their answer, the three began to move again, nearing the medical section Dan finally realized something.

"Babe, huh?"

* * *

CODEX:

Highmark Ship classes:

Note: Each ship is coated with nanites, these nanites actively repair any and all damage to a ship, minimizing any damage as much as possible.

The Corvette is a small starship, forty metres long, designed to solely scan, scout and destroy enemy air or space support craft. Unlike the rest of Highmark ships, the corvette is more pen like in design, but still maintains the gold and blue of Highmark built starships. They are not equipped with energy shields, and are piloted, and crewed, by combat VIs, as Ancillas are to important to loose on a daily basis. Each corvette is armed with mines, EMPs, mining lasers, advanced scanners and twenty six point defence missile tubes. Due its tiny size, every starship with fabricators is able to build their own corvettes as a add on to their fleet. (Unknown number)

Next is the frigate class, a starship that measures at five hundred metres in length, and are designed for fleet screening, patrol and stealth operations. Like all other starships of equal or greater weight, the frigate has a diamond shaped body with two long, forward, prongs, acting as gun emplacements, hangers and storage facilities. Still maintaining the Highmark gold and blue, frigates often work alone or in groups of four or nine (patrol group). Each frigate has two layers of energy shields, a total of four hundred crew, an Ancilla, two normal fabricators, two Sentinel fabricators, and a minimal of ten point defence missile tubes on each side, along with two torpedo tubes on each side, and two frontal rail guns, each reaching a speed of one percent of the speed of light and hitting with a destructive force of thirty kilotons. As with all starships, the frigate has EMPs, mines, advanced scanners and energy banks. (480 frigates per fleet)

The Battle-Cruiser class is the grunt of any fleet, the starship is seven hundred and fifty metres long and are simply designed to fight other naval vessels. With the gold and blue of the Highmark, battle-cruisers often work in teams of ten and, unless in combat, remain with the Fleet Commander. Each battle-cruiser class has four layers of energy shielding, a total of six hundred crew, an Ancilla, four fabricators, three Sentinel fabricators, twenty five missile tubes on either side of the prongs, twelve torpedo tubes on either side, and a rail gun that runs the length of the ship and splits up at each prong, firing out of the end of each, it travels one point four percent the speed of light and can hit with a total of fifty kilotons. (600 battle-cruisers per fleet)

The Cruiser class starship is a whopping one kilometre in length, they are the leaders of the frigates, designed to operate as patrol group leaders, transport and escort. Also in the gold and blue of the Highmark, cruisers tend to operate in groups of three or alone with eight other frigates. Each cruiser has six layers of energy shielding, a thousand crew members, a platoon of legionaries, usually the eleventh when on deep space patrols, dozens of monitor class Ancillas, one squadron of interceptors, one squadron of bombers, numerous variants of shuttles and ground vehicles, eight fabricators, six Sentinel fabricators, thirty missile tubes on either side, ten torpedo tubes in each side, and two main rail guns, reaching one point two the speed of light and hitting with forty kilotons kilotons. (60 cruisers per fleet)

The Destroyer class starship is one of the most deadly, most strictly used starships in the Highmark navy. Two kilometres in length, the Destroyer is designed to level entire planets or fleets and act as a flagship for sub fleets, they are always in reserve and held back with the Fleet Commander. Gold and red, instead of blue, the Destroyers operate alone, with hundreds of enlarged Sentinels as escort, manufactured by the ship itself. Each Destroyer has ten energy shielding layers, two thousand crew, four monitor class Ancillas, four squadrons of interceptors, four squadrons of bombers, twelve fabricators, twelve Sentinel fabricators, fifty missile tubes on either side, twenty five torpedo tubes on each side, and two main rail guns, reaching one point six percent the speed of light, hitting with sixty five kilotons each. (6 per fleet)

The Carrier class starship is considered the most friendly out of the top three classes of Highmark starships, at two kilometres in length, they are designed to carry entire wings, legions and everything required to conquer a system. Operating in groups of three, each one has swarms of Sentinels as an escort, that they manufactured, they maintain the standard gold, but have green nanites. Each Carrier group is far more active than any other Destroyer group or Fortress group. Carriers are completely unarmed, relying on its Sentinel escorts for protection. Each Carrier has twelve energy shielding layers, three thousand crew, hundreds of Ancillas, five wings of interceptors, five wings of bombers, various shuttles, ground vehicles, support craft, twenty four fabricators, twenty four Sentinel fabricators and at least a legion. (12 per fleet)

The Fortress class starship, considered a necessary abomination amongst Humanity, is considered the deadliest starship ever created, measuring at five kilometres in length, the starship is painted golden with orange nanites. Considered a combination of the Destroyer and Carrier, the Fortress starship is meant to destroy fleets and completely destroy an entire planet, as well as act as an invasion platform. With an escort of thousands of all types of Sentinels, this beast is impenetrable. Each Fortress starship has a total of twenty five energy shielding layers, nine thousand crew, hundreds of Ancillas, one Hyper class Ancilla, ten wings of interceptors, ten wings of bombers, numerous shuttles, ground vehicles, support craft, forty fabricators, fifty Sentinel fabricators and at least two legions. In terms of firepower, on either side of the prong are a hundred missile tubes, fifty torpedo tubes on each side and a prototype particle beam in each prong, reaching the speed of two gigajoules.

Energy Technologies:

Energy shielding units: infantry grade energy shields, powered and controlled by a cylinder tube, is located in the hump of the armor. It is capable of sustaining itself for twenty seconds of constant fire, before failing, acid or any other type of non bullet weaponry has unknown durability, as newer, even cheaper models become available, energy shielding units are expected to witness a rapid increase in effectiveness and use, within the century. Be warned, each unit must be maintained and the cooling device always active, if it fails, remove the unit immediately as the power source [Classified by orders of the Highmark] will overheat and reach burning levels that match plasma.

Energy shielding layers: shielding plates around the ship, each layer has three stages of failing, the green stage, at full strength, the orange stage, at mid strength, and the red stage, about to collapse. Each layer is made up of tightly packed octagon shaped shields, each octagon shield can sustain thirty five kilotons of ordnance before failing. Destroying just one shield of the layer does not bring everything down, but does leave a noticeable hole in the ship's defences.

Energy banks: twenty percent of the Trinity Antimatter Reactor sends it energy into these storage banks, so when shields need more energy, or a back up energy source is required, they can feed off the banks and not disrupt the activities of the Trinity Reactor. In theory, when the energy banks are full it could take of the main two tasks of a Reactor, powering the engines and shields for month.

* * *

Authors note: Sorry it took so long to get this out! I've been quite busy as I said in the last chapter, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and remember: you only live once.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Sea of Blue

AN: I apologize if it feels like this chapter switches POV to much, but I have two scenes to do in two different systems, as well as the fact that if I didn't switch POV when I do, then I think I won't be able to express how both sides are reacting to the FC. Also, there's the other fact that in another case, if I don't switch POV, you will be swarmed with pointless dialogue as we wait for the plot to happen.

I want to thank everyone who reviewed, both positive and negative, it has helped me great.

* * *

The Highmarkian Senate operates in a similar fashion to the Asari Republics, each world that falls under the Highmark flag is represented by ten to thirty representatives, depending on the size of your planet of origin. These representatives leave their parent Wave and join the Servant Wave, or become politicians as aliens call them. Each planet is given a purpose that suited the planet, it would set the path for which Wave dominated that planet.

While ultimately the Senate chooses the course of action the Highmark shall take, the Highmarkian Council, which is made up of all the Wave leaders expect the Servant Wave, has major political pull and often become the deciding factor. As those who had left their first Wave would still feel bound to that Wave, and the leader of the Wave, so they would be less inclined to disagree, out of respect if nothing else.

On a planetary scale, the government types depend on the dominant Wave of that planet. Economic Wave controlled worlds often focus more on communal government, each person voting to pass law, judge others, elect representatives who merely speak of what their world wants, and so on. Warrior Wave controlled worlds follow strict dictatorship that comes with military life, however, this dictatorship is not an emperor, but the Fleet Commanders and Legion Commanders in charge of the planet. Worlds that are dominated by other Waves are either a presidential system or a parliament based government. Each government official only serves for twenty five years, then returns to the Wave of their birth.

For those of you wondering about military government officials, these are often Sub Commanders.

\- Documentary on the Highmarkian political system

* * *

August 6th - 2200

The falcon class interceptor flew through space like a hawk would the sky, it's engines glowing a bright blue, a beacon in the void. For the past five minutes Josh had been following the waypoints Thor had established, flying to individual planets and asteroids, to moons, gas giants and even a cluster of unknown debris. Everything had been surveyed, mapped, catalogued and given a temporary name. It was in the cockpit, shielded by the orange canopy, did Josh and Thor feel as bored as ever. Flying a cruiser was surprisingly more fun than flying a falcon, at the moment at least.

"Third planetary ring surveyed, mapped, catalogued and named SGP-T3/665." Thor stated in a monotone voice.

"Gah! I can't stand this anymore." Josh complained "Why don't we go do a little exploring?"

Thor gave Josh a questionable stare, he didn't realize they were already exploring?

"Josh, we are exploring, space ya' know?"

The falcon interceptor flew of course wildly as Josh though his hands into the air and exclaimed.

"No! No! No! We're exploring nothing fun, let's land on one of those planets, become tomb raiders." Josh instantly put his hands back on the controls and adjusted their course towards the third planet.

"Geez Josh! Are you trying to get us court marshalled?"

"No, I looked it up! Protocol FEPT-3-ALP, or Falcon Explorers Planet Tier 3 Authorized Landing Permitted! Yeah, that's right, I know some protocols!"

_Wow,_ Thor thought_, maybe he is as dumb as I thought._

"That's a fake-"

"Would you please scan for a landing zone? My wings are gonna be burning soon." Josh asked.

"Fine, but this is your head."

Thor looked towards the geographic data retrieved over their first fly over, it was displayed on a 2D screen. At their current trajectory they would enter a valley, a dangerous place for interceptors travelling at max speed, but there was a wide clearing in the valley. It was just before a waterfall, but Josh would have more than enough time to switch to VTOL mode and hover to a stop.

"Sending the waypoint to your HUD, you'll need to switch to VTOL mode as soon as we enter the valley though." Thor instructed.

"Yeah, yeah, hey Thor?"

"Yeah Josh?"

"What's that blue stuff?" Josh asked.

"What?" Thor said, surprised, what was Josh going on about now?

"There, look!" Josh ordered.

Josh was pointing out to the left of the canopy, there was some kind of blue mist, Thor quickly checked his geographic data, it shouldn't be there.

"Strange, data says it wasn't there a few minutes ago."

"Maybe it formed when we were on the dark side of the planet." Josh suggested.

"Nah that's not it, the substance, it's not natural for the planet." Thor dismissed, the geographic data was sure that this mist was not supposed to be there "I'll check the Highmark element database, try and identify it."

"Yeah, while you do that i'll be Alice and follow the, I guess, blue rabbit down the hole." Josh laughed.

Thor tuned his gaze back to Josh, a grin of his own forming.

"You know you just called yourself girl, right?" He teased.

"Uh, this never happened."

"Really?" Thor asked "I seem to remember it happenin-"

The terminal Thor had used let out a soft ding, letting him know that a match had been found in the Highmark database.

"See?" Thor looked at the terminal "What the?"

The interceptor jolted to a crawl, as Josh switched the falcon into VTOL mode, below them were humanoid figures, some armed and aiming at the interceptor. Crashed into the side of the mountain was a ship, a heavy frigate by the size of it, the star like ship was leaning on the valley wall, uneven cracks on th left side indicating that an arm or something had been there. The right arm, that stuck out into the air, looked intact enough, but the bottom arm was all squashed down to nothingness, as for the top arm, it stuck out like a sore bone alright.

"Thor..."

"Element Zero ship, crash landing, surprised its still relatively intact." Thor muttered.

"Thor, aliens!" Josh shouted.

"What! Where?"

"Below us, to our left, near the ship, they have guns pointed at us. So, should I land or fly away? Your opinion would be greatly valued right about now." Josh said with impatience evident in his voice.

"Well, training dictates that the pilot, you, lands the craft and initiates first contact. Meanwhile the navigator, me, remains in the craft, ready to either blow it up or take off." Thor explained quickly.

"Great, just freaking great!" Josh shouted as the falcon began to descend.

The falcon landed with a thud, sending vibrations through the craft. Josh quickly slid the falcon's canopy open, his half retracting downwards to the nose and Thor's half retracting to the back, and stood up. He saw the aliens all backing away from him, towards some other aliens further back. Josh hopped over and landed on the left side, short, prong.

"Good luck, Josh, if you don't make it..." Thor started as he climbed into the front seat.

"I'll be back in no time, don't worry." Josh assured him.

"Its been an honour being your partner, all the way since the academy." Josh slid the canopy shut, saving Thor the trouble and pain of having to shut his best, if not only, friend out.

Josh jumped off the prong and landed in a crouch, he flicked his head towards the floor, shutting his orange visor off, so his face was revealed. These aliens would no doubt want to see his face. There were three dozen, maybe more, a dozen were clearly armed but were pointing their barrels down at the grassy surface, others were glowing, with what, Josh had no clue. Though he must admit, it looked stunning, the view not the aliens, the crashed ship was like architecture built into the valley, the sun setting down right behind the ship.

An unarmed, unglowing alien approached him, passing the others with what Josh assumed to be knowing looks. He stopped a few metres from this figure, this alien, she stopped to. Yes, she, this alien was dark blue, with head tentacles, and Human facial features, except the eyebrows, they lacked that at least. Something Josh realized was that they were all female, not a single male, why? Were they an all female race? How would that work? Perhaps their men are so few that the females treasure them as kings? Or this could be a civil war between females and males.

I hope it's the first reason. Josh thought.

"I am," Josh pointed to himself and said slowly "Star Navigator Joshua Bahti, of the fifty first patrol group, eighth fleet, of the Human Highmark. Welcome to..." What had Thor named it? Wait, was it theirs to name? Could they somehow be offended by them naming it? "To this planet."

The alien smiled, smiled! Of course Josh knew she wouldn't understand him, but hopefully she would hear that he was nice, friendly, and hopefully learn his name. But, then, what if they were a warrior race? Nice and friendliness would be frowned upon. He looked at the armed ones, they were definitely prepared for combat.

"Šï mãbèãrch Benezia." The blue women said just as slowly.

Josh looked at them, really looked at them, and realized something, they were all wearing something tight, something that showed parts off. The armed and glowing ones were in tight, black, leather looking armor, that seemed to move when they move, gracefully, just like Highmark armor, the graceful part. The one he was talking to, this "Benezia", was displaying her breasts. Suddenly Josh felt like he was at some questionable bar, and not in a first contact situation, his hormones were taking control.

This "Benezia", did another strikingly Human gesture, she extended her arm out and pulled it back in again. She wanted him to go to her. Mustering all his courage, he closed the gap between them in a few strides, that's when he realized how tall they truly were. From the distance he had thought that "Benezia" and he were the same size, but now, as he looked up at her, he realized he was wrong. Josh was still growing, so was under the average height for his age, six feet five inches, yes he was only five feet six inches. This lady was clearly six feet four inches. But it was those eight inches that made him feel small, inferior, dominated. He cursed protocol and wished Thor had come as well, he had finished growing and was a giant six feet seven inches.

Benezia raised her hands and placed them on his each of his skull's temple, then lifted the helmet and gave it to another alien. He wasn't concerned about a security risk, the HUD was biometric to his DNA only, it was just a shell for them. To his surprise the alien didn't try and scan it, like he had thought she would have, instead she placed it carefully on the ground. What was going on? Whatever it was he wished it would hurry up. There was Element Zero in the air and without his helmet, it was beginning to get into his lungs.

Without warning "Benezia" raised her hands back to his temples and whispered.

"Èmãrce ëtrîñe!"

* * *

"Centurion G! Message from falcon 2-2, message as reads: FIRST CONTACT, FIRST CONTACT, FIRST CONTACT, IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE REQUESTED, NO HOSTILE ACTIONS." The Star Manipulator at the communications station reported.

The sudden message had taken the sleepy Centurion, who had been doing nothing but sleeping and eating, had tossed him around and thrown him into alertness. He immediately stood up from his chair, looking amongst his crew, each of them had their faces hidden by orange visors, but he knew they were shocked.

"No hostile actions." Muttered Kailua "Order wolfpack Dagger to accompany us to the falcon's message location. Leave as soon as possible."

He had sent Josh and Thor out there, in the falcon interceptor, as pay back for shocking him into nearly losing his launch in front of his crew. The thought of puking in his helmet, in front of his crew no less, would be all to embarrassing. So they were supposed to endure an hour of boredom, torture for the overactive Josh, then return with the geographic data of the two nearby systems, they were not supposed to run into aliens.

Then again, vengeance is never what you expect it to be.

"Wolfpack Dagger acknowledges, they are forming around us." Reported the Star Manipulator at the tactical table.

"Entering slipspace in five seconds." Announced the Star Manipulator at the navigation terminal.

Kailua braced himself for the darkness of slipspace.

* * *

Benezia stood in the mind of this alien, of this Human, of this "Joshua". Memories of childhood events, his actions and decisions, everything that made him who he was now was laid before her, and she greedily sucked up the knowledge. He was born on the planet "Reach" a couple dozen light years from his race's home system, there he had been raised by loving parents who had retired from active military service, at the age of fifteen he was accepted into Highmark Aerospace Training Academy, where he finished his normal study and showed great skill in piloting.

He had met his best friend, the man still in this "falcon" class interceptor, Thor, here. Thor had stood up for Josh when some of the more senior students had decided he was more trouble than he was worth. The two had gone on to form a formidable team. Benezia slowly withdrew from the meld, ashamed of herself for straying from her original task of just gathering his language, but the information of this "Human Highmark" was well worth the effort.

As reality flooded back around them, the otherwise blackness of the meld gone, Benezia was shocked at what her eyes saw. One of her commandos had Joshua in a strangle hold, a gun pressed to his temple, while Thor in the interceptor was hovering overhead, guns ready to kill.

"Let go." Benezia ordered the commando "They are confused and scared."

The commando looked between her and the interceptor, sizing up whether or not she should follow the order. _Hesitation_. That was something the Asari could not afford right now, especially when it came a trained commando who had sworn an oath to follow her orders without thought.

"Commando. We must stay on this species good side. They are the key the Asari need to securing our safety. Stand down, now." Her tone was commanding, unwavering in its resolve.

Begrudgingly the commando realised Joshua, the smaller man dropped to his knees, gasping for air, air that was poisonous to him.

"Joshua, your helmet." Benezia said in the same tone, he couldn't die.

Josh grabbed the helmet that had laid at her feet and attached it to his head, he flicked his head downwards and the orange visor quickly hid his face.

"I can understand you?" He asked between deep breathes.

"Yes, what I preformed was a meld, where our minds become one, our memories shared." Benezia explained.

"Mind shearing, just what everyone boy wants." He muttered, barely loud enough to hear.

Josh rose from his kneeling position to stand as tall and as proud as possible, but the fact that he had been all but thrown to the ground by a female had wounded his ego, an ego built on his flying skills and his skills with the ladies on his birth world.

"Thor, land that thing and get me out of here!" Josh said into the Battle-Net, silently thankful for the comm drones that had been sent ahead of them.

"Relax Josh, Centurion Kailua is on his way, he'll be here soon. In the mean time, see if they need help." Thor suggested.

He knew Thor was right and was disappointed in himself for not wondering if they were in trouble, after all, their ship had crashed and was obviously damaged beyond repair. Josh turned to Benezia, she looked cold and had bags under her eyes, letting him know she had had little sleep and by the smell of most of them here, they hadn't showered. Not that he could blame them.

"Do you need help? Are you stranded?" He asked.

"I am afraid so, our ship is to damaged for flight and our fleet is busy fighting off another wave of Batarian hordes."

"Batarian hordes?" He wondered "Never mind, hordes usually lead to something bad. If you can wait, our superior officer is coming to assist."

Benezia inwardly smiled, her little wing, and the rest of the wounded, might just be saved after all.

"Yes, thank you."

"Thor, activate a beacon and land that thing." Josh said.

"Alright, coming down."

* * *

"We have entered the third planet's orbit." Announced the fourth Star Navigator of the HSV Boston.

"Sir, Falcon 2-2 is hailing us." The Star Manipulator at the communications said.

"Accept the hail." Kailua ordered.

Before the still sitting Centurion, a Star Navigator in standard combat and flight gear was projected before him, his head tilted to the floor. It was Thor no doubt, Josh wasn't one to make reports to his superior officers, his mouth and undisciplined attitude had given him a yellow flag many times until Thor had taken over.

"Sir," Thor started "we need immediate medical assistance. The aliens we made contact with are wounded."

"Communications, alert medical, I want medical shuttles at Thor's location asap." Kailua ordered without a second thought.

The medical nanites, that solved nearly every problem, would map the alien's biology and identify how to solve the problem. After that, the nanites would carry out the necessary repairs then transmit the biology to his ship, and finally, once they were done, they would simply dissolve and exit the body the next time the user had to pee.

"Yes sir!" As the communications officer began to distribute the orders to the five ships, Kailua turned his attention back to Thor.

"What. Happened?"

* * *

Centurion S class Ricky Bhatt walked around the diamond bridge of his frigate, the HSV Dawn of Justice, he was stretching his legs as he was a Star Centurion, or captain as the twenty first century would call him, walking for long periods of time was not an option on his small ship, but even he needed exercise, and because he was on duty he couldn't pay a visit to the gym yet. Whispers had already began to buzz around the ship as to why their lead cruiser, and four other frigates, had departed to save just one recon team. It rased the all important question "What had happened to them?".

"Communications, why do you think Wolfpack Dagger and the HSV Boston went to save a recon team?" Bhatt asked, as he sat down at the centre of the bridge.

The Star Manipulator looked up, clearly startled by the sudden break in the peaceful silence of the bridge.

"Well, a recon team would warrant a frigate to rescue them, not four. So it can't be a Search and Rescue mission. In fact, the only thing that might warrant a cruiser is..."

"First Contact." He finished "Or a pirate base trying to restart the golden age of piracy."

"It would most likely be the former, as stealing and pirate related things have been forgotten by the public, as nearly everyone has a job now. Actually, what little crime remains is murder, espionage between corporations or unbecoming behaviour." The XO added to the conversation, as she entered the bridge.

Whoever designed female armor was clearly a fool, most likely attempting to distract on duty and off duty males for whatever reason, it showed every curve and assets the wearer had. A really distracting sight. Luckily most Highmarkians respected each other to much to stare, but for the more inappropriate ones, well only a matte black cloak blocked their view. It wasn't worn by females in combat of course, unless she believed it wouldn't get in the way.

"Right," the Star Manipulator agreed "so... First Contact."

"So it would seem."

* * *

Matriarch Benezia winced slightly under the touch of a human legionarie, his grip was firm on the old woman's left arm, she felt a pin prick on her shoulder, then he let go.

"The nanites will heal all external and internal wounds, they will map your biology then do their jobs. Afterwards they will transmit the data to other nanites to save time, and then dissolve into waste." The man said calmly, strangely unfazed by the fact she was an alien, maybe it was because they looked similar.

"Thank you." Benezia thanked, he then went off to treat another Asari.

She was still the only alien who could speak English, so communicating between the Asari and Humans were difficult, but the Human treatment method didn't involve talking, only a reassurance on her part and a needle to the arm, so the problem of communication could be ignored, for now at least.

Matriarch Benezia slowly stood up from the crate she had sat on, she could feel the nanites flowing through her body, mapping Asari biology in seconds and determining the best solution for her wounds. The feeling was weird, to say the least, they were like a tingling feeling all over her body. It was to be expected, the medic had told her, that these nanites were designed for Human DNA not Asari, it would take them a short period of time to adept to their alien biology. The aging Matriarch was stunned at just this piece of technology alone, but she knew they had crafted even greater technologies, inventions that the Asari would no doubt use in the ages to come.

She made her way over to Matriarch Lindanya, she had just taken a dosage of nanites and was beginning to stand up. As the battle hardened Matriarch finally stood up, she casted a look over the organized chaos that was before her.

"I wouldn't mind their easy job," She muttered, barely loud enough for Benezia to hear "just inject a needle and the jobs done."

The two walked towards the lone interceptor in a field of shuttles, they walked down the corridors of people, all of which were in varying states of injury. Purple blood stained the grassy fields, while Eezo visible drifted in the air, they were immune to it as the Asari had evolved in Eezo, however, the Humans weren't as lucky, for them it was toxic. Wearing helmets at all times was a must for them, and because their visors weren't transparent, she was the only one who had gotten a good look at them.

"Then I got mind sex." They heard Josh use his child's voice, as they approached the interceptor.

Mind sex? Benezia had told him they had shared memories, not performed a Union, but then again he could be exaggerating, or had she gone to far in her search for answers? She hoped not. While Josh was attractive, by her standards anyway, he was simply to young and she to old, plus, a forced bondage is not a good way to start a new relation with a new species.

"Of course, whatever you say Josh. Tell the alien leader that a diplomatic vessel is already on its way, escort them up to the HSV Boston, they must be hungry." The holographic image of a Human commander said then muttered something nearly to quite for Benezia to hear "They must also smell, so they can shower as well, these "Asari" cannot meet the Master Oracle smelly."

Josh laughed.

"Your right," he said a little to loud "they kinda do..." he didn't finish as he spotted the two Matriarchs staring at him "I take it you heard that?"

* * *

"Contacts!" The Star Manipulator at the sensors terminal bellowed "fifty, sixty-one, ninety three ships have just entered the system."

"Sir, the HSV Dawn of Will, the HSV Dawn of Iron and the HSV Dawn of Hope has been alerted, the Will is moving to protect the scientists, the Iron and Hope are forming up on us now." The Star Manipulator at the communications terminal reported.

"Comms, order the Deimos platoon to bunker down, prep all of our legionarie details and raise shields. Status of the unknown fleet?"

As frigates were patrol vessels, they were required to have at least one squad of combat capable legionaries, meaning the eight frigates of a patrol group would have forty eight legionaries and two combat medics, a whole platoon. While the combat medics and twenty four legionaries had gone after the recon team, he was sure that the eighteen legionaries that would be near the unknown fleet could capture a ship.

"The unknown fleet, or should I say fleets, are firing on one another. I have scanned their vessels and have confirmed these are made from two different factions, I'd say two different species judging by colour and vessel design."

"Which side is winning?" Bhatt asked.

"It's hard to tell as the two sides have merged, but... I think the less advanced side is winning. Sir, the Mantle states-"

"I know what the writings of the Mantle." The Centurion snapped.

The Star Manipulator recoiled at the sudden harshness in his superior officer's tone, Centurions were lifers, those who decide to remain in the Wave for their entire life. As it was the duty of the Warrior Wave to enforce the Mantle, they had all been indoctrinated to live by the tenants of the Mantle, willingly of course. It was for this reason, and a few others, not many Warriors left the Wave as it was all their studies had focused on: becoming a warrior and enforcing the Mantle. They simply weren't suited for other Waves, this would be true for their children as well.

It defied the way how Human society was suppose to work, but this had been a problem since the dawn of man, if you kill in the name of you country, your government, and so so over and over again, it is hard to reintegrate with civilians that have no blood on their hands. Such was the reason Veteran villages existed, secluded towns for warriors who's time had come.

"Order the Iron and Hope to make a corridor, full power to shields, split the forces in two. Ancilla, try to hack their ships and force them to stop fighting." He ordered.

"The Iron and Hope acknowledges, they are moving into position."

"I have successfully captured all unknown combatants, parting them." The Ancilla reported "Monitoring alien conversations and language databases, cross referencing, compiling translation."

"Displaying sensor data."

A holographic map of the system was projected before the Centurion, they had quickly reached the fourth planetary ring and had arrived at the two unknown fleets coordinates. Each unknown fleet group was displayed in grey, the groups were designated group one and group two, with two green icons in between the two groups and his ship, a blue icon, approaching the "centre" of this cluster.

"Ancilla, how long until a translator in created?" Bhatt asked the ship.

"Thirty minutes and fifty five seconds."

"And what can you tell us of these factions?" The XO asked, as she stood beside the Centurion.

"These fleets belong to two different species: Asari and Batarian, as far as I can tell. The Asari are an all feminine race who lean toward peaceful solutions, and the Batarians are slavers that use other races for manual labour and a sign of social status, at least this is what I have observed in their respective fleets databases."

"Ancilla, prepare a Slipspace drone bound for Centurion Kailua, we need his presence. Send all relative data."

"Acknowledged, report secured and away."

An eerie silence encompassed the bridge, the ship's Ancilla was still working on a translator so there was nothing for the organic crew members to do, except maintain the ship and await for the completion of a translator.

* * *

Liara walked amongst the "Human" crew on their dreadnought sized ship, her mother had melded with her on the shuttle ride here along with Matriarch Lindanya, and shared with them the language of Humans. This new species fascinated her in a way that not even the Protheans could, their ships and technology was clearly advanced, perhaps more so than the technological tree of Element Zero. For Goddess sake, they have a one kilometre long ship in the atmosphere of a planet! Only Citadel frigates could do that! The Humans looked at her with what she assumed to be curiosity, maybe fear, or was it lust? She couldn't figure out which one was the best fit, then again who was she to guess, she rarely understood Asari facial expressions.

She walked over to the food counter and saw a variety of food that looked like it belonged on a cruise ship, not a military vessel, although Liara decided not to complain. After spending days eating military food, anything would be better. Liara looked at the food with a curious, worried expression, she had been standing there for what felt like ages, trying to decide what to eat. It was all so alien to her. She could just walk away and not eat anything, but she was hungry, it might also appear rude, as if she was too good for their food. If she did eat something, she could find it disgusting then spit it out, who knew what would happen then?

"May I suggest the Qui'arne?" A voice from behind her asked in English.

Liara hesitantly turned around to see the face of a Human female, she blinked in surprise at what she saw: the Human had removed her helmet, showing her well toned cheeks, her eyes were marvellous, large purple iris dominated the eyes, and long yellow hair fell down her back.

'So this is what Human females look like.' Liara thought.

"The the the Qui'a?" She stuttered, realizing she had been staring.

"Qui'arne." The Human corrected "it is a collection of fruits melded with sweets, it is more of a party food really, but the chef made a tray full of them, this is, after all, a special occasion."

Liara looked back to the food counter, there were dozens of trays full of food lined up, which one was it?

"Here," The Human pointed, picking up a plate from the tray and handing it to Liara "be warned: unless you have a fast metabolism, this can make you very hyper."

"That will be no problem." Liara assured her "Would you sit with me?"

The Human gave Liara a small smile and nod, she had probably expected the question as, if Humans were as perceptive as was to be believed, the female already knew that Liara was socially awkward and would need help settling in. Of course she would have preferred her mother or guardian to be here with her, but the duties of Matriarchs came before her, it stung to be considered less important than their jobs, however, complaining would only follow the stereotype maiden, something Liara had planned on never following.

"Sure." The Human grabbed her own plate of Qui'arne, then led Liara over to a empty table in the corner.

"I could not recognized any meat available for selection." Liara mentioned as she sat down.

"That is because there was no meat available, eating meat has be illegal for several decades now." Her companion said before starting to eat a red ball with sprinkles on it.

An all vegetarian race? The thought was disturbing, all species needed meat, the protein it provided, but for several decades all they ate and will eat is vegetables? It was time for a Q and A session, as the pilot Josh had called his questions of the Asari people.

"Truly?" Liara wondered aloud after swallowing a piece of a red ball with sprinkles on it, the sweetness was delightful, magical even "Does your species not require protein?"

"Of course we do, we use genetic modifications so that eggs, beans, nuts, anything really, will provide the protein we need. Eating meat is just wrong in our eyes, it is against the Mantle of Responsibility."

Genetic modification? Maybe they had cybernetic modifications too? And the Mantle of Responsibility!? This Human and her kind were such a mystery, one that needed to be solved.

"What is the Mantle of Responsibility?" Liara asked.

* * *

CODEX:

Fall of The Council:

The Citadel Council was the latest galactic government to fall. It once stood as a beacon of light in the darkness of this galaxy, uniting dozens of species under the collective rule of The Big Three. Pretenders to the Mantle. When their time as fake caretakers came, it was not from the legions of the Highmark, nor from any other outside force, but from one of their most trusted "Spectres".

A one Saren Arterius, the longest living Turian Spectre at the time, had interacted with a "Prothean Beacon", it transmitted the Turian images of the fall of the Prothean Empire. He set about finding information of these "Reapers", visiting hundreds of Prothean dig sites and even enlisting the help of an Asari Matriarch. After months of searching Saren was approached by a Reaper known only as "Sovereign", it confirmed the Turian's suspicions of the Reaper threat and tried to indoctrinate him. For a time the Reaper was successful, gaining the support of religious Geth and discovering the Conduit, a mini Mass Relay left behind by the Protheans.

Saren used the Conduit as a back door to the Citadel Presidium, there he made his way to the Council Chambers, awaiting for him was his old student: Nihlus Kryik. Seeing the young Spectre, ignorant of the threat, gave Saren the strength to break the indoctrination and warn the young Turian of the Reapers. He orders a full evacuation of the Citadel, to which only Nihlus and a few other Spectres follow, then makes his way to the core of the Citadel. While Saren fights Sovereign in his mind as the Reaper and the Geth army invades the Citadel, he arrives at the power core for the Citadel, the Mass Effect field generators, Reaper built power plants, and the Mass Relay leading to Dark Space. He successfully overloads the power core, causing a giant explosion that destabilized the Mass Relay, the energy realise from both explosions destroyed the entire system, and Sovereign, in seconds.

Months after the Destruction of The Citadel, Nihlus, and the other Spectres who had followed Saren's orders, reported to the Asari, Turian and Salarian governments. Unity amongst the three species is soon lost, as the Hierarchy defends the actions of Saren: stopping a potential threat to the galaxy, while the Asari see his actions and the Hierarchy as nothing more than warmongers, trigger happy primitives, that will see to the destruction of the galaxy, while the Salarians are outraged at the loss of dozens of Dalatrasses and the technology on the Citadel.

The Big Three soon split, taking the younger races as client races or forcing them into exile. War quickly follows, with hundreds of Asari-Turian-Salarian battles raging across the galaxy.

With the galaxy in chaos, and no one doing anything to stop it, the Highmarkian Council has called for order.


End file.
